Gluten Free Baking Help for Bread Machines

Rather than simply layering ingredients, you'll need to follow the instructions in the Gluten-Free Baking Classics for the Bread Machine cookbook (by Annalise Roberts, item 03423 $11.95) and warm your liquids to between 65 and 75 degrees F. The dry ingredients also get special handling, as prescribed in the cookbook. Be very accurate with your measuring and fluff your individual flours and then the bread mix either by shaking in a tightly covered container or by whisking. Combine all the dry ingredients for a single recipe of Basic Bread and whisk them prior to spreading lightly over the liquids in the pan. We use 1 1/2 tsp. Fermipan/Instaferm instant yeast; if you are using Active Dry Yeast as mentioned below, you'll use 1 packet. Be especially careful and accurate with your xanthan gum measurement because even an eighth of a tsp. too much will effect your loaf. Use too little and your baked goods will fall apart and/or turn out brittle and hard. Use too much and baked goods will condense and shrink after baking, growing ever tighter and smaller for days after.

All that said, the author developed the recipes in that book using the Zojirushi BBCC-X20 Home Bakery and had other folks with various machines field test the same recipes. Results were best in the "Zo". Make sure your machine is not underneath a cabinet or against a wall while bread is baking because this restricts airflow around the machine, possibly resulting in short loaves. There are numerous additional specific tips and guidelines covered in the cookbook. I highly recommend it.